May 16, 2018

Got home from work last Thursday and was greeted to an empty house (unless you count the 4 ½ cats that call the place home, well, maybe, technically it’s 5 but the one cat is old and never moves from its perch.) Anyway, my buddy that has been suffering from dementia/Alzheimer’s had vanished.

I checked the garage and sure enough, no car.

After a few phone calls seeking advice it wasn’t long until my neighbors came to the door and said the police had come by and told them my friend was being held in the observation ward at a local hospital. It seems he went out for haircut and couldn’t remember where he parked his car. In a nutshell, the police were summoned and he gave them his address and phone number from, oh, maybe eight years ago.

I called the hospital and sure enough, he was there.

It seems he had also gotten a bit belligerent with the police and hospital staff and was being held in bed by a series of restraints around his waist and both of his wrists to keep from ripping the IV’s out of his arms.

He remains there still, although much calmer but he still doesn’t realize he is in the hospital. We’re still waiting on some tests and some doctor’s advice about how to best proceed but having watched my mom go through something similar I can read the tea leafs and the prognosis isn’t good. To top it off, he also has urinary tract infection which might have played a part in his sudden break from reality.

I’ve been in contact with, for what I know, is his only living relative who lives about 1500 miles away or however far away Washington State is from Ohio and she seems rather nonplussed about the matter. There just doesn’t seem to be a sense of urgency. (I’ve been after her to get a POA since November of last year figuring something like this might be on the not too distant horizon.)

Anyway, going to the hospital again after to work to drop in and hopefully get some more concrete information about how to best proceed.

On the dark side, after numerous calls to the authorities, his car has not turned up yet. We went looking in vain for it on Saturday, again, to no avail.

On the bright side. At least he didn’t hurt himself or anybody else and maybe him finally getting the care he so desperately needed might be a blessing in disguise.

Still, I can’t help feeling that I’ve failed him in some abstract kind of way.